FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
7mo ago
Why is Astral Codex Ten so poorly made? I've checked the article on multiple different computers and my browser constantly has performance issues or other bugs with it, despite the website not doing anything but show me text. I've tried to read this article multiple times and been unable to finish due to performance problems and bugs on the site - is there an archive or text-only copy somewhere?
That is because it is on Substack and Substack manages to have problems with displaying text.
In AD 2024, on computers with 64GB RAM and processors more powerful than supercomputers few decades ago. No idea how they managed to achieve this feat. Probably a lot of JS frameworks.
ACX just seems to be Substack already, unless there's some other way to view the posts. I also notice awful, awful chugging on ACX. I think the problem is that the comments section always loads everything, which is a lot of text and images to render, whereas normal Substack makes you go to a separate page to see all of them.
I think the problem is that the comments section always loads everything, which is a lot of text and images to render,
There is no way these loading times are caused by the amount of text and images. I dare you to just repost the content as a post on a phpBB forum, on the cheapest web server you can find, and compare the loading times. It's downright depressing how bad the Internet has gotten, and how many people think this is somehow the cutting edge. I wanted to quote a recent comment describing the more general phenomenon of unsolving solved problems, but when I looked it up it turned out that you're the one who posted it.
I dunno, maybe it is something with the background scripts on ACX, but I could swear the reason is "the page for any ACX post is like 43 times longer than any non-TV-Tropes webpage needs to be, because the comments section is not truncated like on any other Substack post."
I can't easily find a reference for it, but I think Scott asked for his full comments to be inlined as part of his deal for moving his blog there (which was a big deal for Substack at the time).
I'm not sure if there's an option for it that just nobody else uses, or he's given a special case.
I guess since the comments perform fine in the tiny paginations everyone else has, and he's no longer as important to them since they've grown by orders of magnitude, they've never bothered fixing it.
I know some of you are skeptical. I was too at first, but Substack has gone above and beyond in allaying my concerns. They've let me test out a "no popup telling you to subscribe" feature. They've changed the comment section to be more like WordPress. We've agreed I'm here for a year, but if it goes badly I can leave in 2022 with no hard feelings.
You might be right that the issue lies in the substack comment section, but what I'm saying is that if they implemented it well, it wouldn't be an issue. With today's hardware and infrastructure you should be able to load a book's worth of comments without batting an eye.
Yeah, I only notice it on mobile, but Substack has terrible performance. Thankfully they're nice enough to support rss: https://www.astralcodexten.com/feed
They don't usually, although I've noticed the occasional bit of slowdown or unresponsiveness. Astral Codex Ten gives me more issues than the rest by far.
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Notes -
Why is Astral Codex Ten so poorly made? I've checked the article on multiple different computers and my browser constantly has performance issues or other bugs with it, despite the website not doing anything but show me text. I've tried to read this article multiple times and been unable to finish due to performance problems and bugs on the site - is there an archive or text-only copy somewhere?
That is because it is on Substack and Substack manages to have problems with displaying text.
In AD 2024, on computers with 64GB RAM and processors more powerful than supercomputers few decades ago. No idea how they managed to achieve this feat. Probably a lot of JS frameworks.
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Use your browser's options to disable Javascript on that domain.
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It's apparently on Substack now. Do other Substack blogs cause you trouble?
ACX just seems to be Substack already, unless there's some other way to view the posts. I also notice awful, awful chugging on ACX. I think the problem is that the comments section always loads everything, which is a lot of text and images to render, whereas normal Substack makes you go to a separate page to see all of them.
Yeah, the domain just forwards to Substack.
There is no way these loading times are caused by the amount of text and images. I dare you to just repost the content as a post on a phpBB forum, on the cheapest web server you can find, and compare the loading times. It's downright depressing how bad the Internet has gotten, and how many people think this is somehow the cutting edge. I wanted to quote a recent comment describing the more general phenomenon of unsolving solved problems, but when I looked it up it turned out that you're the one who posted it.
I dunno, maybe it is something with the background scripts on ACX, but I could swear the reason is "the page for any ACX post is like 43 times longer than any non-TV-Tropes webpage needs to be, because the comments section is not truncated like on any other Substack post."
I can't easily find a reference for it, but I think Scott asked for his full comments to be inlined as part of his deal for moving his blog there (which was a big deal for Substack at the time).
I'm not sure if there's an option for it that just nobody else uses, or he's given a special case.
I guess since the comments perform fine in the tiny paginations everyone else has, and he's no longer as important to them since they've grown by orders of magnitude, they've never bothered fixing it.
Possible source (after holding the "end" key on my keyboard for five minutes to overcome the infinite scroll on the "archive" page)
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You might be right that the issue lies in the substack comment section, but what I'm saying is that if they implemented it well, it wouldn't be an issue. With today's hardware and infrastructure you should be able to load a book's worth of comments without batting an eye.
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Yeah, I only notice it on mobile, but Substack has terrible performance. Thankfully they're nice enough to support rss: https://www.astralcodexten.com/feed
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They don't usually, although I've noticed the occasional bit of slowdown or unresponsiveness. Astral Codex Ten gives me more issues than the rest by far.
Astral Codex Ten shows comments by default. This should not stress browser but Substack is extremely poorly done from technical side so it does.
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